Jewish secularism

[at marie a. failinger]

This precise example points out why I think a blanket condemnation of
action which is not specifically religious as "secular" is problematical
(as is the dismissal of all religious people by secular ones.)

Jews in Israel are, I am told, described on a range from secular to
religious based not only on their affiliation with, say, Reformed or
Orthodox, but
also their degree of observance, from attending services to Shabbat
observance to care with their food.  Rick wants to characterize Christians
also on the basis of their actions, but a fair number of Christian
denominations define who is a Christian not on the basis of action but on
the basis of God's promise to them, and/or their faith in it, while others
focus primarily on assent to a set of doctrines.  (I do not dispute the
empirical point that Christians are a minority.)

The type of either/or polemics that both religious and secular people get
into obscures the varieties of authentic witness to truth (and falsehood)
that mark our world, and pushes people into triumphal and/or defensive
thinking about those whose witness differs from theirs in any respect.
How can we find truth when it is obscured by the struggle for personal or
group power?  Telling the truth is not necesssarily a struggle for such
power, but I don't see how labelling (which is at least partially
untruthful) can avoid the problem of the human
grasp for power.


Marie Failinger

On Tue, 4 Mar 1997, Sanford Levinson wrote:

> Rick Duncan writes:
>
> As Sandy has informed us, most American Jews are secularists.
>
> I'm actually not sure about this, inasmuch as it would depend on one's
> definition of "secularist."  I am confident that most Jews who are academics
> are secularist under practically any definition (though, to revert back to
> the hot dog discussion of last summer, my own secularism includes adherence
> to traditional practices of not eating pork or shellfish).  I simply don't
> know if "most" American Jews are unaffiliated with any synagogues or temples
> or would, even if formally affiliated (as I am) nonetheless define
> themselves as "secularist" in basic intellectual stance (as I would).  I
> suppose that Orthodox Jews would describe Reformed Jews as secularist, but I
> presume that most Reformed Jews would vigorously contest that (in the same
> way, perhaps, that members of mainstream Protestant denominations would
> resist being defined by their own "orthodox" counterparts as "really"
> secular).
>
> .  Incidentally, I am far more confident that most Israeli Jews *are*
> secularist, in part because the Orthodox maintain a hegemony over organized
> Jewish life and those who reject Orthodoxy are much more likely to adopt
> secularism than is the case in the United States.
>
> Sandy Levinson
>
> ------------------------
> Sanford Levinson
> B.U. Law School
> EMail: levinson at bu.edu
> ------------------------
>